September 2017

Today, Amazon Web Services Inc. (AWS), an Amazon.com company (NASDAQ: AMZN), announced that Randstad, a leading international staffing and recruitment company, will migrate its global data centers to AWS. With this move, Randstad aims to increase efficiencies and align IT infrastructure with its digital vision to provide high-quality service to its customers around the world. AWS's proven security and operational expertise helps Randstad protect sensitive data and meet its compliance needs. Randstad also has access to the most robust and full-featured set of cloud capabilities with AWS, allowing Randstad to innovate from idea to launch in record time.

Today at Microsoft Ignite 2017, NTT Communications Corporation (NTT Com), the information and communications technology (ICT) solutions business within the NTT Group, announced that it has enhanced its Disaster Recovery-as-a-Service (DRaaS) offering by leveraging Microsoft Azure Site Recovery. Providing capabilities previously too expensive or complex for on-premises solutions, the new DRaaS offering enables replication of enterprise workloads to an NTT Com data center or Microsoft Azure, assuring real-time business continuity (BC) in the case of unexpected server failures or planned downtime.

One of the world's largest cloud, network and data center providers, NTT Com has brought its global IT capabilities to DRaaS; and for the last several years, leading technology analysts have positioned NTT Com as one of the top providers in this space. An automated disaster recovery software solution, Microsoft Azure Site Recovery is built upon the capabilities of Azure, named by Gartner as a leader in multiple cloud categories. The integration of Azure Site Recovery within NTT Com's managed services platform provides a powerful, flexible and affordable enterprise solution that overcomes limitations and reduces costs.

Domino Data Lab, a data science platform provider, today announced general availability of its Domino Model Delivery product. Built to run natively on Amazon Web Services (AWS), this offering makes the process of deploying highly scalable production models faster and more cost effective.

Building on four years of customer success with companies including Coatue, DBRS, Eventbrite, Mashable, Monsanto, and Moody's Analytics, Domino on AWS delivers a superior customer-centric experience spanning the full data science lifecycle. Domino Model Delivery, a new module in Domino's platform, allows data science teams to weave new and improved models into business processes seamlessly, making a bigger impact without burdening IT or Engineering personnel. Moody's Analytics recently licensed Domino to create a platform that accelerates the development and deployment of tailored models for its customers.

"Moody's Analytics selected Domino and AWS to deliver our data and analytics in a way that are tailored to provide our customers with confidence and transparency, " said Jacob Grotta, Managing Director at Moody's Analytics. "With this new platform, our clients will get access to Moody's Analytics data, models, and expertise in a collaborative workspace that accelerates model development, validation, delivery, and maintenance. The platform enables clients to combine our modeling processes and data, with their own data and business insight, to create models that fit their unique needs."

Caringo announced today the availability of Caringo Swarm Hybrid Cloud for Microsoft Azure, allowing its customers to replicate files from S3, NFS, and HDFS to Azure in the Azure native Blob format. By seamlessly converting files from an S3 object, Caringo object, Azure Blob or NFS accessible file, you can send files to Azure for analysis, protection and long-term archive.

Most organizations are quickly outgrowing their traditional network attached storage (NAS) and storage area network (SAN) devices and data growth continues to outpace storage resources and strain budgets. Organizations need to combine the security of a private cloud with the efficiency and additional services of a public cloud. Caringo Swarm Hybrid Cloud for Microsoft Azure provides the flexibility and agility to execute computing tasks, while keeping the most vital components behind your company's firewall.

DXC Technology announced new application and managed service offerings for Microsoft Azure and Azure Stack that provide a wide range of services to accelerate and efficiently scale digital strategies across both public and private clouds.

"Enterprises and public sector clients are facing increasing business pressures and regulatory changes that are accelerating the need for flexible, scalable cloud solutions," said Dan Hushon, senior vice president, chief technology officer,DXC Technology. "They need to optimize operations and performance across platforms to decrease costs and increase agility - all while maintaining compliance.

"The services we're announcing today help clients with their Microsoft Azure strategies by providing the specialized tools, methods and skills needed to build, modernize, transform and migrate applications," Hushon continued. "They demonstrate commitment to strengthen our relationship with Microsoft to deliver services for Azure that empower enterprises to thrive in today's dynamic business landscape."

"Cloudian HyperCloud for Azure is a game-changer for public cloud storage, enabling true bi-modal data storage across multiple cloud environments," said Michael Tso, Cloudian CEO and co-founder. "For the first time, customers have a fully supported, enterprise-ready solution to access their choice of cloud platforms from their S3-compliant applications. Customers can be up and running in minutes by launching HyperCloud from the Microsoft Azure Marketplace."

Today, Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS), an Amazon.com company, announced that Toyota Racing Development (TRD), the in-house engineering division for Toyota and Lexus motorsports programs, has gone all-in on AWS. Building its race intelligence system on the cloud with the most functionality has helped TRD's teams win NASCAR races. TRD uses AWS's industry-leading cloud services to create mission-critical applications that enable its crews to improve precision, consistency, and speed during practice runs and in competition. These race intelligence applications collect data from vehicles and their environments and apply real-time analytics and machine learning to better understand how a vehicle may handle on any track under any circumstance.

Making changes to your company should be taken in strides. Major updates aren't actions you want to take overnight, and then surprise everyone with what you've done when they get into work the next day. Your goal is to implement modifications that have an impact without disrupting business as usual.

Think long and hard about what your company is lacking and what customers want more of from you. Design a plan that outlines your objectives and how you're going to get there. Converse with others on your leadership team to confirm they agree with your ideas. See business enhancements that actually add value.

The Cloud

Moving your business to the cloud is a smart way to add value. Doing this has the potential to deliver big changes to your company. You'll rest easy knowing your data is being stored safely and securely. This is beneficial if any computers are tampered with or you have a run in with any type of natural disaster. It's easy to stay in touch when you're working within the cloud. Team members will have no problem working remotely and sharing documents with each other.

Scale Computing announced that it is working with Google to develop HC3 Cloud Unity, a hybrid cloud solution that makes it easy for organizations, including channel partners and MSPS, to move application workloads freely in the cloud or on-premises.

HC3 Cloud Unity allows an organization's apps to use resources in the cloud and on-prem at the same time, and enables apps solely created for on-prem to now run on Google Cloud Platform.

"One of the biggest barriers to cloud adoption for IT organizations is the inability to move applications to and from the cloud," said Jeff Ready, CEO and co-founder of Scale Computing. "With HC3 Cloud Unity, Google and Scale have laid a massive two-way speedway across the HC3 clusters on-premises and HC3 on Google Cloud Platform. This network means organizations no longer have to use or create different apps for the cloud, they can utilize their apps created for on-prem to run in the Google Cloud, which will be a game changer of end users, channel partners and MSPs globally."